WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make gold on the Auction House. Check out Basil's gold making podcast, Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

One awesome side effect of the latest patch's new PvP gear is a way to make Enchanting materials much more cheaply. Since all the new gear is iLvl 458 blues, they disenchant into an Ethereal Shard. Sometimes two of them, although that is probably from the guild perk. By far, the most popular profession to use to craft this type of gear for disenchanting is Tailoring. Windwool Cloth is cheap and plentiful, and 20 of them make a single Crafted Dreadful Gladiator's piece that can be DEed.

If you're hyped about Hearthstone -- or even if you're just curious as to what Blizzard's latest is all about -- you'll want to check out this gameplay video. The video shows a complete match between Jaina (a mage) and Thrall (a shaman), giving us a good look at how the game plays as well as the abilities of these two heroes. And, just so we aren't lost in the newness of it all, the video features a narrated play-by-play to walk us through the action. We've got to say, it looks promising: featuring familiar characters, skills, and abilities, brightly-colored Blizzard art, and fast gameplay.

Psst, Blizzard, our beta keys are in the mail, right?

Well, even if they aren't, we hope this is only the first of many such videos on PlayHearthstone's YouTube channel, because it really just makes us curious as to what other classes and heroes can do.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) loves Animaniacs almost as much as she loves Freakazoid.

They were never "slated" to become BoA, or even BoE for that matter. People expect them to do so because they've done so with nearly every crafting material prior in every prior expansion. However, Motes and Spirits of Harmony are easily and readily farmed, so I don't know if we'll actually see them ever become BoE. It could happen, but we haven't heard anything to suggest it would happen!

Each week, Sunday Morning Funnies is spotlighting a regularly updating comic based on or inspired by WoW. This week's feature is What's Shakin':

What's Shakin' is a comic that chronicles "the epic adventures of Coffinshaker and friends." It is based on the original characters from Coffin Comics, which is now about a variety of video games and other topics.

While it is inspired by WoW, it is an original story set in its own world. Shawn Tommelleo, the creator, describes it as "fantasy drama with a splash of humor."

Coffinshaker is the "fun and lovable fire mage" with a big imagination. He's quiet, a touch odd, and really doesn't have much hair. Ell is the "smokin'" hot healer of the group who specializes in defensive magic. Nith is a holy battlemage and trouble-maker, while Pai is a summoner (complete with guardian spirit, Berry, who - alas - can't use magic).

Doop a doo doo doo. Don't mind me, folks. I'm just walkin' over to the auction house to check on my bids. Afterwards I'm planning on doing a little fishin', maybe fry up some catfish. Oh, this? On my forehead? It's just a Mephistophelean symbol of pure evil, you know, a sigil through which the Dark Lord can channel his forces into this dimension. It's nothing to be worried about. Hey, did you see Duck Dynasty last night? Wait, where are you going? And where did all these priests and paladins come from? Come on, dude! I thought we were cool! (Thanks to submitter Inkuoh of No Way on Quel'Thalas [EU-H] for the screenshot!)

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"Help?! We don't need no stinkin' help playing WoW!" ... Well, except when we do. As streamlined as World of Warcraft is today, the gameplay isn't 100% intuitive or foolproof. Come on, surely everyone here has at least once noticed a loading screen tip that's inspired if not a revelation then a determination to remember to try something that way.

I'd venture to say that there are so many avenues of in-game help today that the very idea of in-game help is losing its training-wheels stigma. We have the dungeon journal, the What's Changed tab, the Core Abilities tab ... I use most of these at least somewhat regularly as I switch from alt to alt, to refresh my memory since the last time I dusted off that character. Which of these in-game help tools or others do you use? Is the level of detail there too light, too dense, or just right?

If you've been wondering what's been going on in Ironforge during Cataclysm and Mists, patch 5.3 ought to fill you in. The first of two scenarios required to unlock the quest chain for 5.3, Blood in the Snow tells the story of Moira Bronzebeard and her attempt to prove to both the Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and the Alliance itself that the Dark Iron are worthy allies. One tends to forget that Moira's roots lay originally with the Bronzebeard clan -- and she's not out for blood, she's out to prove that both she and the clan she now runs aren't the one-dimensional villains everyone would like to make them out to be.

Does she succeed in this goal? Well ... that remains to be seen. But given Cho's story of the three clans, the tale that pointed out that both Wildhammer and Bronzebeard were being perhaps unnecessarily paranoid, it looks like the dwarves might finally be moving in a direction of actual unity. Meanwhile, the scenario itself is actually pretty fun, and presents a bit of a challenge without being impossible.

This fine video is brought to you by Fireside Guild. Not only is it beautiful to watch, but it could be one of the best sleeping aids you'll ever encounter. See, Weightless by Marconi Union was created along with the British Academy of Sound Therapy to be one of the most relaxing songs ever heard. They were so successful that listeners are warned not listen to the song while driving.

I can vouch for the effectiveness. In the early heady days of parenthood, when the Shieldling refused to go to sleep, my wife and I resorted to playing this song for her. And it worked. If there wasn't something particularly wrong (like diapers), then Weightless would put her to sleep. It's amazing.

I am thrilled beyond words to see it put to a WoW machinima. Nice job, Fireside!Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

I decided it was time to give some attention to tanking, because I've been all about the DPS lately. Now, I haven't raid tanked in quite a while, since Tier 14 really, so outside of some LFR and some heroics I haven't really been putting tanking through its paces. Still, I do keep my prot offspec current, keep my gear up as best I can, and run both LFR and heroics as prot to keep my hand in.

What got me thinking about tanking for this week was this older column from Theck that I never got around to discussing. Part of that is the piece is mostly math, which for the average warrior tank just wanting to know what she or he should do is kind of over the top. What's really important about the piece is that it helps to explain why dodge and avoidance are better for warrior tanks than paladin tanks (or, really, any tanks) - basically, it highlights how Revenge works with avoidance stats on gear. It also covers how Revenge as a rage generation ability falls off when you're not getting directly attacked so that you can't dodge or parry anything, and how while it's not a crippling result (He puts it at about 4% of your total rage generation, due to Shield Slam being a higher priority than Revenge) it does cost you.

If you have spent much time on the official forums at any point since the beginning of -- oh, say, Cataclysm -- you'd notice that there is a particularly prevalent slur that is oft flung around in tanking discussions. This slur cuts to the very core of what it means to be a tank, it is an accusation of seeking vainglory over properly gearing ourselves for survivability. Worse, it is an accusation of being behind the times on tank theorycrafting due to either apathy or incompetence. It is the Scarlet S.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Sup.

sergel92 asked:

Do you think Blizzard will change the size of LFR in future expansions?

Like instead of 25 maybe make it 15 or 20?

It's pretty unlikely. The reason why Raid Finder mode is 25-person only is because it's the ideal ratio of tanks, healers, and DPS compared to who's waiting in the queue. Going to a smaller size means messing with that ratio and affecting queue times. Like it or not, 25 is the best size for everyone right now.

"I was just flying by Menethil and I happened to notice all of these Alliance and Horde laying down on the lake like this," writes submitter Dreyfusxano of Focus on Durotan (US-A). "Upon closer inspection, they were laying down on the lake in the formation of a multi-colored ribbon. With April being Autism Awareness Month, and just learning that I had Asperger's about a year ago, I wanted to start doing my part to advocate for autism. This felt like a good step in the right direction. Needless to say, everyone who participated in this ended up leaving with wet backs and robes."

Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm.

How many pieces of player-made gear is your character wearing right now? What if we specified PvE characters only? I'm betting you could count your crafted pieces on one hand -- and more likely, one finger or less. While recent buffs mean that crafted PvP gear still has legs (literally and figuratively) for players in transition and building mode, there aren't a whole lot of must-have PvE crafteds in the game anymore.

Player-made gear used to be a staple for leveling players, and many pieces were coveted even into the raiding game. Crafted blues and purples made all the difference in whether you could mow through the content or simply plink away. Today's players sail through the levels and clear raid content faster than they can gather the mats while a piece is still relevant. And leveling a production profession to make your own gear? To keep your skills on par with your level, you'll need to keep a hawkish eye on your adventuring XP, devoting regular sessions to pulling your crafting skills up to the bar. You can probably find crafted gear for sale in the auction house if you play on a realm with a robust economy, but the easiest path to power these days is simply to play a couple of hours and ding up another level.

Crafting my own gear and being able to make a coveted piece for a friend or guildie used to be a highlight of the game for me, but my most recent characters have simply never given crafted gear a second thought. Has player-made gear become irrelevant in today's game? Would you prefer more of an emphasis on crafted gear, or are you just as happy to see it fade?

If you've played WoW for more than a half hour or so, chances are you've noticed the game's achievement system, which rewards you with (meaningless) points and sometimes more tangible rewards (like unique tabards or special titles) for doing certain things in the game. You'll find you get achievements for leveling, achievements for completing quests, achievements for picking up gold, achievements for leveling professions, there's even an achievement for visiting the barber's shop. We've gathered some achievements that are a bit more out of the way, but many you won but all of which you can either pick up or work on while you're leveling. They aren't all easy, but none of them require you to be level 90 and epiced out.

So if you're leveling but are interested in upping your achievement game, give these a try. We've ranked them in what we think of as order of difficulty. If nothing else, they're a distraction from the leveling grind!

1. Duel-icious
All you have to do here is duel another player and win. Any player -- even if they're much lower level than you are -- will do. We recommend asking a friend to duel with you, but you can request duels from anyone. Just remember to be polite about it rather than just going around challenging everyone in an area to duels!

TradeChat's Panser returns with this week's WoW Insider news recap, where we look back at the hottest news from the past week and whatever other kickin' rad things may have come our way. This week's topics include:

Those rapscallions from the Fireside Guild are back with this clever homage to one of the most frustrating robots in the history of WoW. Nimii and Behradin nailed the truth of the matter in The Blingtron 4000 Song: you will never get the Orb of Mystery from him. Never.

The singing in this video is fantastic and the animation is equally fun. Nimii's skills are obvious and I always look forward to what they're going to do next. In the words of Olivia, "I quite like this one." I think you'll agree.Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

The WoW official forums are known as many things among fans and players, and some of those things are not-so-nice. However, they can also be an invaluable resource for both players and developers alike. I personally will forever be grateful to the very useful thread several years ago that taught me how to level my priest without dying every two minutes, and the community managers do consistently remind us that they use the forums as a way of consolidating player feedback, especially for the PTR.

Sometimes, though, things get ugly. People get emotional, and in a fit of anger or frustration they post something they either wish they hadn't, or which turns out sounding less like an eloquent criticism and more like an incoherent rant. Over on the EU forums, Pondato is tired of seeing their posts get locked or ignored, and wants some advice on how to avoid that fate.

The thing that's really great about this post is that it immediately has useful answers. Especially good is how MVP Shammoz quickly breaks down the difference between "discuss" and "vent," two things that are often mutually exclusive. The advice to write your post out in advance, in another window (or word processor), give it some time, and then go back to it is also a good thing to keep in mind, and something I do regularly for all types of writing. If you've found your posts on the wrong end of a banhammer recently, or know someone who has, this might be a nice resource to keep in mind.

How's those allergies treating you? Here in lovely Washington, DC, the cherry trees blossomed for an entire half hour or so before impending storms threatened to whip away every flower. In the meantime, though, allergies are thick enough that I'm pretty sure the Sha of Allergies is lurking around the corner.

Our bonus question this week: How do you feel about the pace of the expansion so far? It seems to be going pretty well, and it feels right. I mean, dailies, blah blah, but the content patches seem pretty swift.

It's just a fact that raiding normal or heroic raids is a communal activity. When you said "I cleared Heroic ToES before the patch" what you mean is "We cleared Heroic ToES before the patch" because unless you have a Martin Fury in your bags, you didn't solo it. Progression raiding is always about the group. You don't accomplish things we do. The same is true for arenas or rated battlegrounds - these bastions of elite PvP are group activities, and your success or failure is shared with others. World of Warcraft is an MMO, after all.

Even LFR or random heroic dungeons or scenarios are group dependent, it's just that in these cases the groups are assembled for you by the game. You may well queue up for each of these alone, and you may leave and go about your business afterwards just as alone, but the actual raid, dungeon or scenario will have other players in it with you. This is an inescapable, inseparable part of the WoW experience, and it is one of the things I enjoy about the game.

However, as much as I do enjoy group activities, as much as I love raiding and going into a dungeon or raid zone with a group, there are times I just want to be alone. And it is this desire to sometimes play at my own pace, to my own schedule, that has me reconsidering my expansion-long disdain for the daily quest structure of World of Warcraft.

Since my current weapon is a polearm, I've been dying to be able to use it with Titan's Grip, and it had appeared that my dreams were coming true in patch 5.3. Both Wowhead news and MMO-Champion had posted that as of build 16837 the restrictions on Titan's Grip disallowing polearms and staves have been lifted. Is this a case of tooltips not being updated properly? I had hope not. I'd really like to dual wield a pair of Hellreavers. Since I know that datamining can lead to weird tooltip issues, I asked Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street for clarification on twitter.

So it's probably not going live in patch 5.3 - whether the PTR change is just a tooltip error or a test of the possible functionality we'll find out once 16837 goes live.

I don't know if this also means that polearms will be usable with swords, axes and maces for transmog or if they'll still be considered to share a class with staves. I have a lot of staves in the bank just in case, though. I like hitting people with Damnation.

I wrote a KYL this week talking about Uldaman, and one thing became clear to me very quickly - there's a ton of things we haven't done in Uldaman yet. We barely explore the place at all, really - the Map Room we find during the dungeon clearly shows many, many more buildings than the few we actually explore, and it's telling that the Reliquary dig and the Explorer's League digsite are half the length of the Badlands away from each other. Furthermore, the long Wrathion quest chain makes it clear that there was a lot going on in Uldaman - the Eye of the Watchers used to purify Wrathion's egg comes from Uldaman.

Uldaman is often referred to as one of three Titan cities along with Uldum and Ulduar, but unlike those two it has barely been explored due to its position buried beneath the Badlands. It's possible that the original Uldaman complex reaches as far as Khaz Modan (both Gnomeregan and Ironforge are settled by beings that would have traced their descent to Uldaman, and the troggs flooding into Gnomeregan are escaping from Titan vaults that are part of the Uldaman complex) which would mean that its size rivals the Storm Peaks Titan complexes that were part of the Forge of Wills inside Ulduar or the vast Uldum ruins.

"Where did you get it?" Lolegolas asked. "That's awesome, I want one."

The ancient gave Lolegolas a huffy, annoyed look in response.

"It seems like you'll have to get it from the Store," Throgg answered. "But I think it's worth it."

"Absolutely," Lolegolas said. "Completely worth it."

The Blossoming Ancient huffed and walked his flowers on down the road.

Item Note: Details are scarce, but so far, it does seem like you'll get this guy from the Blizzard Store.Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) just saw the above video for the first time.

This song was stuck in my head all day yesterday, so you guys can have it now. Also, while I'd heard this song about a million times, this is the first time I've seen the video. Man. I'd forgotten how lame hair was back in the mid-90's.

Moving on!

Alexey asked:

Do you think Blizzard is kinda...overdoing Garrosh's, er, villain-ness? The more info I see on next patch, the more one-sided he gets. Somehow it seems like he's trying to get as many people angry as possible on purpose. It doesn't even look like he simply doesn't consider consequences - he just specifically choses the worst thing to do!

"The Pandarization of Azeroth is complete," writes submitter Gimmlette. "After seeing all these people with such interesting gear come to visit him, Arthas decided that he needed to find out what this tranmogrification business was all about. But because he can't leave the Frozen Throne, he did the next best thing. He started the assimilation of the first pandaren he could reach, Munkendronk from Spectacular Death on Llane [US-A]. While the group thought the hat really highlighted the armor, ultimately, they preferred their tank with them and not trying to keep the Scourge at bay."

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WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

With a community of millions around the world, Blizzard has no easy job trying to keep botters, gold sellers, cheaters, and other hooligans in check. Blizzard has enacted many rounds of mass bannings over bots and hacks. As Archivist noted last summer, several guilds have been banned or suspended for abusing exploits in raids. Among the countless players and guilds who have earned Blizzard's ire over the years, a few stand out as worthy of revisiting. Here are their stories.

Still just roleplaying?

In an online environment owned and operated by a company, "freedom of speech" does not extend quite as far as it otherwise might. That, at least, is what members of Abhorrent Taboo found out in the fall of 2007. The Horde-side Ravenholdt roleplaying guild boldly proclaimed their identity as an "extreme erotic RP guild."

The guild's welcome message laid out their philosophy:

Role-playing is legal. Even if you are role-playing something that would be considered deplorable and highly illegal IRL, it's still just role-playing and isn't subject to any form of disciplinary action. Negative publicity is still publicity. Make a Digg or website about how sick we are. Report us to PervertedJustice. All it does is bring in more members. In fact, the Digg the guy on Ravenholdt made about us was so effective, several people signed up for WoW just to be in our guild. The bottom line is: We're allowed to do what we do on any server we please and no one can do anything about it.

Maybe I just can't get that song out of my head yet... you know the one. But I was kicking back last night thinking about Silithus, and how it's that zone that I used to know. And then the expansions came along and they cut me off, making it out like those hours running around gathering the spice never happened.

But zones are like that. You spend untold hours farming spice, or getting yeti parts, fighting undead forever and a day, or just farming giant earthworms. And then an expansion comes along and now you're just rifling through dailies with every ounce of tolerance you can muster. That old favorite zone (Silithus, Plaguelands, and so on) becomes a distant memory.

What's the zone that you used to know? That one that was part of your daily routine but now, steeped in the brews of Pandaria, you can't believe was ever a part of your life.Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

The patch notes for the patch 5.3 PTR have received a small update today on the official blog. Included are some adjustments to Pet Battles and PvP, as well as some really interesting changes for healing abilities and summoned pets/totems. Faster casting for summoned pets? Yes please.

Gargoyles, Forces of Nature, Mirror Images, Water Elementals, Searing Totems, Doomguards, Terrorguards and Wild Imps all will now chain cast their spells with no delay between casts.

Creatures that are level 90 and above should now have a chance to drop Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, in case you weren't getting enough of the things elsewhere.

Owners of the Teldrassil Sproutling, Ruby Sproutling or Withers will note that the Shell Shield ability for these pets has been replaced with a new ability: Ironbark. It's very successful.

You can see the full list of patch notes at the official site, but if you'd just like a list of the new changes, follow after the break for a consolidated list.

"Honey, why can't you take my old laptop on your trip?" "Because it only gets 10 FPS in Val...erm, because I want one that can Skype with you well without any slowdowns!"

First, you're going to need a machine to play on. If buying a new laptop isn't an option, it's not the end of the world; WoW can run on some positively ancient hardware, if you're comfortable with playing on lower graphics-quality settings. After installing it on a few laptops during my last trip overseas, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that any dual-core system should be able to at least run the game well enough to login, chat, and browse the Auction House. (In chronological terms, that means any system since about 2010 or so, and some higher-end 2008-2009 systems.) Of course, if you want to do anything more vigorous than posting auctions and talking in guild chat, you'll want a better hunk of plastic. Raiding and battlegrounds, in particular, will heavily tax your system, so try it out on your machine BEFORE you go. Trust me; learning Alysrazor tornadoes was challenging by itself, learning them while playing as a healer moving at 5 FPS was even worse.

Don't let yourself miss out on the astounding appearance of Thor Ultralisk of Void Ray EX. It is one and a half minutes of pure joy, all wrapped up in a clever parody song. Of course, Thor Ultralisk isn't the only in-joke in the video, but you can spot plenty of your own.

Thanks to the AFK Players for an unbelievably good video. Here's hoping you find a tree of your own, one day in the near future.Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

The world first race is now genuinely over, Method have killed Ra-Den on 25-man, with no bugs or glitches, and a full 25-man raid's worth of health. Method Raider Blatty says on his facebook page:

It's over. We'd predicted that we would get him this week, and after two pulls it was done. We are now the only people in the world to have killed the last boss of tier 15.

After the previously reported issues experienced by Asia's 七 煌, who apparently switched to 10-man and managed to get Ra-Den to bug out, there was a hotfix implemented to prevent the issue where Ra-Den was apparently able to be kept from gaining many of his abilities.

Many people thought it might be the case that the limited attempts would therefor be removed, or at least that the race would carry on for a while longer. Now that he's down, we can look forward to Method's videos showing off the fight and kill, and see what all the fuss has been about. Method have taken this last boss down ahead of Paragon, who have led the race all along, albeit in the 10-man size, and ahead of Blood Legion, Russia's Eksorsus, the EU's Sanitas and Envy, as well as the US guild, Midwinter, all of whom were on 12/13.

For those of you who have mastered the secrets of the Brawler's Guild and are hungry for more, community manager Crithto has some potentially tantalizing things to look forward to in patch 5.3! Members will now have the opportunity to achieve rank 10, and there will be eight new boss encounters against which to test your strength. Those bosses are being kept purposefully under wraps for now - no head starts on strategy, folks!

Another new addition will be an item called a Challenge Card. Using a Challenge Card will give the player a quest that allows for yet another new encounters to be unlocked. In addition, once you've defeated a boss, you can speak to the Challenge Card NPC for the opportunity to revisit the fight if you so desire. So for those of you who have been wanting the ability to face down a boss more than once, your wishes shall soon come true. Also available will be player VIP lounges - for those of you with a high enough ranking, of course! There will be unique Alliance and Horde areas, but if you play Alliance and have completed the 5.1 quest lines, you may already have a passing familiarity with your spot.

Blizzard posted yesterday about patch 5.3's aforementioned introduction of off-spec rolls, and it's now in the PTR, so, of course, WoW Insider had to go check it out. Our first observation is that it's slightly oddly positioned, as you can see in the image above, it's in the right-click drop-down menu that comes off the character pane. Once you've located it, it's simply, as you can see, a matter of picking your spec and heading into your chosen content. As you can see above, I'm on a shaman, and so can choose to gear any of my three specs. The "Default" option, as the name would suggest, is the standard behavior of the system: the loot will be for the spec you have entered the instance in.

This system is active wherever the new loot priority system is, so, Raid Finder loot, including Bonus Rolls, and, as the Blizzard post says, Heroic Scenarios and Mists of Pandaria quests. At the moment on the PTR, it is not working for normal scenario loot, I went and did a few scenarios as Elemental with Enhancement loot selected, and got intellect mail every time, which is not a huge surprise given that the Blizzard post doesn't specify non-heroic scenarios. It is a little odd, though, given that many people will start off in normal scenarios, particularly DPS hoping to gear a tank or heal spec, as the queue times are so much shorter.

Of course, this system is not relevant for 5-man dungeons, where you can already roll need on off-spec gear with no detriment to your chances apart from the anger of four other people. Alas, thanks to a mixture of very long queue times and woefully bad luck, I was unable to test this system in the Raid Finder.

When I began playing Horde sometime in 2005, I vividly remember running through the barren hills of Durotar and completing the quests. According to the quests, I was just a new character that may or may not have the potential to be a hero someday -- and I felt suitably lowly, yet willing to help out. But I tell you what, I never, ever in a million years expected to be at Vol'jin's side, leading a fleet of angry Darkspear on a charge through the shallow canyons to Razor Hill, and eventually Orgrimmar itself.

It may just be on the PTR for now, but it is seriously one of the most sweeping, awesome, coolest moments I can remember in all the years I've been playing this game.

Vol'jin's back in Kalimdor, and he's ticked. But then, being the target of an assassination attempt ordered by the Warchief of the Horde is probably more than enough to make anyone cranky. If there's anything we're learning in patch 5.3, it's that while the Darkspear may be small, they are far from helpless -- and kicking that bees' nest is an action that will ultimately be sorely regretted. Both Horde and Alliance are on the prowl in patch 5.3, but the stories on each side of the faction fence look very, very different in patch 5.3, although the goal at hand is ultimately the same.

It's well known that hunters have the greatest community in WoW -- a community whose awesomeness is disproportionate to the number of players (which is, of course, larger than any of the support classes). There is something about the hunter class that has a tendency to draw the helpful, generous, and uncommonly good-looking to it.

The extent of the hunter community is more than just some of the best theorycrafters and optimization tools and blogs and news sites. We also have a vast array of original WoW hunter music -- more, I dare say, than any other class can boast.

There is a wealth of hunter songs out there: some original, some parodies. Certainly there will be songs that you hate, given the breadth of genres, but I suspect you're also going to find several that you love. Let's take a look at some of the musical creations of the hunter community.

The Darkspear Rebellion has begun on the patch 5.3 PTR -- Vol'jin and his forces are attempting to lay siege to Orgrimmar itself. The content spans the breadth of Northern Barrens at this point, with quests and story for both Alliance and Horde players along the way. But what's a new set of quests without a new selection of goodies to be had? Sure, Vol'jin, we'll help you out ... but give us some cool stuff for the effort, okay?

And it appears at the moment that there are quite a few new items to grab. There are plenty of new toys, a new pet, and a host of gear to be gathered from the Darkspear Rebellion quartermaster -- and we've compiled a list of screenshots for all of it. As of right now, there doesn't appear to be a reputation requirement for any of the new items. Simply gather a truckload of Kor'kron Supplies and turn them in for the rewards at hand. There are two exceptions to this -- the new battle pet Gahz'rooki requires a Radical Mojo to purchase, which is currently a reward for a weekly supplies-gathering quest. In addition, the Raptorhide Boxing Gloves require a Radical Mojo to purchase, as well as Brawler's Guild membership to start the quest that they offer.

Whether or not these items will remain available without a reputation requirement is unknown, but the rewards aren't tied to Valor points, and they don't appear to be powerful armor or weapon upgrades. What they are, however, is a whole lot of promising fun. Take a look at the gallery for the full list of Darkspear Rebellion items coming your way in patch 5.3.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today.

Let's get it on.

Dawn Moore asks:Who has the best beard in the warcraft universe and why?

As the title makes clear, the answer is Anduin Lothar, and the reasoning is simple. Because he was Anduin Lothar. His beard is better than Malfurion's because he was objectively better than Malfurion. I'm sorry, but the answer is Anduin Lothar and that's the end of it. I didn't write a two part love letter to Anduin Lothar because someone else had a better beard.

I'll admit that $25 can seem like a lot for a race change. But if you really, truly believe that you're a worgen at heart, it might be the easiest option. Dressing up like a werewolf and hanging out on the rooftops of Stormwind every full moon is going to get pretty time-consuming. The real worgen are laughing at your ridiculously oversized paw-gloves. (Thanks to submitter Kikibear of Titans Nightmare on Silver Hand [US-A] for the screenshot!)

Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm.

Deep in the heart of steamy Stranglethorn Vale, within the golden city of Zul'Gurub, gathers a savage band of Zandalari trolls. Loyal to neither the Horde nor the Alliance, these players embrace a fierce roleplaying ethic that can be both fascinating and intimidating to newcomers. Yet Atal Zanza Aka is esteemed by other guilds on Argent Dawn (RP-EU) and has become a vital (if quantitatively small) ingredient in the roleplaying community.

We visited with guild leader Zazajin to explore this niche of WoW roleplaying and find out how this guild manages to thrive in as antagonistic role that sweeps it away from the well-traveled paths and populated city centers of Azeroth.

WoW Insider: It would appear that making a troll character for Atal Zanza Aka is full-throttle roleplaying not for the faint of heart, would you agree?

Zazajin: Our guild is indeed first and foremost a roleplaying guild. We formed as a breakaway from the Loa Atal Ai (a Darkspear-based trollish guild which serves the Horde but includes different troll tribes) during the occupation of the Echo Isles, and abandoned the Horde to serve the Zandalari and preserve trollish culture, which our characters felt was threatened under the Horde's regime and thus moved to Zul'Gurub to try to preserve that culture. We're made up of various troll tribes, much like the Zandalari themselves. We've members from the Amani (forest trolls), Drakkari (frost trolls), farraki (sand trolls), Gurubashi (jungle trolls), and Zandalari (those trolls that stand up straight, haha).

Sorry, new players, but we're all breaking out the rose colored glasses jumping aboard the nostalgia train for today's Breakfast Topic. Today we're looking back on our favorite game moments: specifically the quests and events we miss from WoW long gone. We're talking about things like the epic end to the Alliance Onyxia attunement quest, ending in Onyxia fleeing from Stormwind -- which, okay, we wouldn't actually miss very much if we'd had to do it recently -- or the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj world events -- which we wouldn't miss, either, if we could still remember all the peacebloom we had to farm.

It's not so much that we want these things to return as they were -- seriously, peacebloom farming -- but it seems a shame that these historic happenings have come and gone from Azeroth, never to be seen or experienced by new players. Because even if these events were annoying -- sometimes really annoying -- they had some truly epic moments that we'd love to relive. So, fellow gamers, what's the epic moment (or moments) you'd like to see brought back to WoW?

Yesterday's hotfixes may have been a short list, but today's list, just released on the official blog, are slightly more substantial. While there are a few quest fixes and tweaks, the majority of today's list of hotfixes involve the Throne of Thunder raid. Players that are currently raiding in a 10-man group may want to take a look at the list, because damage has been reduced for many of the bosses and boss abilities.

Just in case yesterday's Durumu changes weren't enough, Durumu's Disintegration Beam now dissipates sooner before reaching the end of the Maze of Death[TM].